The
well known dangers of high cholesterol, due to the blockage
of blood trying to flow through a clot or narrowed arteries
often results in serious tissue damage, triggering heart attacks,
strokes, and other cardiovascular problems.
A
certain amount or number of cholesterol level is necessary for
your body to function properly, and cholesterol is utilized
by your body’s cells as it travels through the blood,
assisting with functions like producing estrogen, vitamin D
and testosterone. Cholesterol resembles a waxy substance, and
essentially is found in two sources, either by digesting it
through meat products or dairy, or producing cholesterol in
our livers – and the body tends to produce most of the
cholesterol it requires at any given time. The dangers of
high cholesterol occur when excess chunks of the fat-like substance
begin floating around in our blood. This serious problem with
potentially hazardous effects to our health actually strikes
millions of people worldwide.
The
preventative steps to ward off the dangers of high cholesterol
should begin when a person reaches 20 years old, and every adult
of this age and over should get a blood test annually to determine
the health of their cholesterol levels. Excess cholesterol can
form on the inner artery walls throughout our bodies, forming
a type of plaque or scar tissue, which is known as atherosclerosis.
As this plaque hardens up, it narrows the artery walls and effectively
reduces or even stops blood flow. Sometimes it even causes the
hard and inflexible artery to tear. The body responds by forming
a blood clot as its natural response to repairing the tear in
the artery, but should the clot block blood flow, it can result
in a stroke or other life threatening symptoms.
The
trouble with high cholesterol is that you can’t really
see or feel the dangers of high cholesterol. The disease of
high cholesterol itself doesn’t even show any particular
symptoms – it does its greatest harm by causing other
diseases like strokes – that statistics show take a person’s
life just over every thirty seconds. And that is certainly one
of the most devastating and traumatic dangers of high cholesterol. |
